Divergences
by Lady Lioness
Summary: Every decision we make alters the course of our lives. Make one decision differently and go down an entirely new path. AU Sheldon/Penny One vignette does contain character death


_Think of it as an infinite number of planets spread across an ever-expanding universe. Every decision leads to a different future, a new world of possibilities. Some worlds are radically different, timelines skewing off in a myriad of directions. There are also worlds that are endless mirror images of each other, save for one decision made by one individual. _

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Two days after he and his sister turn thirteen, his mother hears the Lord's voice commanding her to leave her alcoholic husband and to seek refugee with her kin who live in a small town outside Omaha, Nebraska. The Lord may not have been present so much as created by clever mimicry and a bullhorn, but he doesn't think of it as deception since the Lord does work in mysterious ways after all. When her best friend's geeky cousins roll into town, she is ten years old and instantly fascinated by this alien boy who wears layers in the summer & plays with dolls. He'll be leaving soon, to go be a doctor or something, but she makes him promise to write. He does and she stays up late with an encyclopedia & a dictionary to read the ten page commentary on his latest research. She writes back and he replies and they will be penpals for seven years when he proposes in letter number 1,794. She says yes.

* * *

There is a girl, she is twelve years old, and she goes right instead of left. The calf's hoof catches her on her temple and she is airborne for a split second before her head crashes into the hard-packed red dirt floor with a sharp crack. She will be in a coma for three days before her grieving parents finally decide to let her go and donate her organs. Her heart goes to California, her lungs to New York, and her corneas go to his grandmother, nearly blinded by glaucoma. He is a frequent and vocal visitor, much to the medical's staff constant displeasure, but when the bandages come off, the look of love she sends him makes it all worthwhile.

* * *

It is the winter formal and she is sixteen. She feels beautiful and so grown-up, which is why she says yes instead of no, and nine months later, her daughter is born. She gets her GED and waits tables at the local Cheesecake Factory, working impossibly long shifts to provide her child with everything she needs. It pays off seventeen years later when she sends her baby off to California to college. He is the professor for her first class, a mandatory evil that is built into his contract, and he notices the young blonde girl with the flower in her hair as she looks for a seat. He doesn't know then that this child will be his nemesis all semester, constantly asking questions (always Why?), and actually showing up during his office hours with even more questions. The evil girl actually brings her mother (also a blonde and probably just as evil!) to meet him during Parents Weekend and he hides in another lab until they give up and go away. When the semester ends, he swears to himself that he is never teaching her again.

* * *

His mother straightens his tie as he waits to receive his second doctorate. He is twenty and carefully weighing his options as what to do next. He has a number of offers, of course, and he has narrowed it down to three: California Institute of Technology (Caltech in the vernacular), Syracuse University, or University of Texas at Austin. Looking down at the top of her head as she smoothes invisible wrinkles from his jacket, he spots the gray strands her hairstylist missed (Jesus helps those who helps themselves, Shelly). His sister slides into the empty space next to their mother, a space meant for a much bigger individual. They smile at him, pride in their eyes, and he recognizes the emotion from rehearsing his lectures in front of a mirror. He looks at them, his family, and decides that UTA has a much stronger Physics program than Caltech. He does not visit California until nearly ten years later and then the train he's on suffers a mechanical malfunction. He exhausts his reading materials and, in desperation, picks up a gossip rag someone left on a nearby seat. As he reads an article about some insipid blonde television actress and nude pictures sold by a meat-head ex-boyfriend, he knows this is the last time he is ever traveling to California.

* * *

On her eighteenth birthday, she skips her afternoon class and goes across town to her boyfriend's apartment. They'd been talking for weeks about leaving this podunk town, about packing up and moving to California. She is going to be an actress and an old football buddy of his is gonna get him work as a bouncer. It will be fabulous and they were only waiting until today before they put their plans into motion. She bounds up the creaky steps, two at a time, ecstatic at the possibilities of the future. Turning her key in the lock, she shoves the door open, only to freeze when she hears the unmistakable noise of sex. She peers around the doorjamb of the small bedroom to confirm that, yes, that is her boyfriend, and oh, look, it's the captain of the cheerleading squad. She always thought she'd go ballistic in this situation, but she just quietly backs out and shuts the door behind her. She heads to California that night. Alone. She gets a crappy job as a waitress at a Cheesecake Factory and an even crappier apartment she shares with two other girls. The agent comes first after a year of plastering her headshot across town. Three years later, she goes on an open call for a new Star Trek pilot. Miracles occur and not only does she get the part, but Fox puts in an order for 13 episodes. There is a sweepstakes for a 'date' with her as part of the publicity blitz and she is won by a physicist in Pasadena. When she shows up at his door, complete with bodyguard, he is taken aback because his roommate entered him in the contest without his permission. He goes anyway, just out of spite, reveling in the shorter man's squawking protests. She is polite, he is himself, and the bodyguard is quiet, although prone to rolling his eyes at perfectly innocuous statements. Surprisingly, the evening is not a complete disaster and they end up exchanging cell phone numbers. He doesn't think anything of it, knows he is never going to call her, but time goes by and _she_ calls _him_. When she is killing time between takes, when she needs his opinion about character motivation, when she wants someone to simply tell her the truth, and soon he is calling her too. Fourteen years later, her Emmys share the mantle with his Nobel Prize.

* * *

It is ludicrous, a twenty-five year old man scared of a mere grad student, but it is also true and it is what drives him across the hall to knock on her door. When she finally appears, he formally requests sanctuary. Anxiety surges through him when he hears his apartment door open, but before he can panic, she is plastered against him, her lips pressed against his. She only does it to help him out and to get rid of the annoying red-head who has been disrupting their routine for days now. She expects it to be like kissing her brother or, like, an ice cube, but oddly, strangely, it's not. There is a muffled squeak behind them and she wobbles a bit, his hands naturally falling to her hips to steady her. He is kissing her back, his movements shy and tentative, and it continues long after the grad student has stomped down the stairs. They break apart, silently slipping back into their own apartments. It's never discussed, as they hide behind the shield of friendship, but when his roommate asks her for another date, she says no.

* * *

_This is a moment where she is standing in the kitchen, wide-eyed with messy hair, and he is by the door, fingers twisting the strap of his messenger bag. Only a few feet separate them, but it may as well be a galaxy. The silence is tense and thick, and the whole world is holding its breath, poised waiting, waiting for a decision to be made…_


End file.
